Women Torchbearers of Viksit Bharat - Sowing Seeds of Tomorrow

In an endeavor to contribute to the development of the rural economy, Sandeepa Kanitkar is pioneering use of sustainable microbial technologies to increase farmers' productivity to produce safe food by nurturing soils with carbon and microbes

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As a woman entrepreneur, how did you pioneer in the field of crop management?

Worldwide farmers are fighting a losing battle due to reducing soil fertility, scarcity of water, climate change effects and pesticide residues. It is a vicious cycle of adding more but yielding less. Also, the food is not safe. The water is contaminated with nitrates and it is getting hotter by the day with erratic monsoons.

As an Industrial microbiologist I started working with Prof U K Kanitkar, a crop physiologist, who convinced and motivated me to work on microbiome - the key to solve fundamental issues in agriculture and improve the plight of farmers. The entrepreneur bug hit me in 1991 and I decided to stay back in India and work for the farmers. My eventful journey has been a great learning!